I have a day job. So every word of this is my opinion, not that of my employer. This offer IS void in Wisconsin. Except, of course, that some material in this column comes from incoming e-mail; such material is usually reproduced in the Sans Serif type font to distinguish it from the (somewhat) original material.

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Tales of Teaching 2004
Tales of Teaching 2005

Table of Contents:

General News

• How Not To Be Remembered
• The Threat
• My Brother Graduates

Computer Industry News

• Craig Reynolds' Technobriefs

Web Site of the Week

• Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics

Humor

• The Top 15 Ways Queen Elizabeth Celebrated Her Jubilee

Movies

• None

Letters

• None

General News

How Not To Be Remembered

I was just reading the Esquire profile of Johnny Carson on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of his retirement from television (it is the "fun" issue with Kirsten Dunst on the cover). You may have noticed Carson disappeared. To sum up the piece: he's glad he went out on top, doesn't miss TV and is never coming back, so get over it. He has even closed up the Carson Productions office. If you're at all interested in him, the Tonight Show or late-night TV, read the piece.

When Roseanne asked him why he was retiring, he quoted Beverly Sills, who "would rather have people say to [her] at a party, 'Beverly, why did you quit singing, rather than why didn't you quit?'"

And so, I thought, wouldn't it be neat if I had gone out at the top of my game? And then I realized: I'm not sure when that would have been.

I am not going to be remembered as much of a journalist. I was reading Fred Langa's Langalist biography the other day, and noted that he has won 20 awards. I have won five, four internal awards from CMP and one internal award from the Oregon Journal. In short, no one other than my colleagues ever thought any of my work was award-worthy.

Although I am proud of my 30 years and 10 million words as a professional writer and journalist, it is not for my career that I'm going to be remembered. I was a journeyman, a competent craftsman, beloved by my colleagues and staffs, but not a towering or particularly talented figure by any means.

As A.J. Leibling once said, "I write faster than anyone who writes better, and better than anyone who writes faster." And from 1972 until 1992, I wrote longer than anyone, period, at a time when length (combined with cogency) was a prized talent. Then I had to learn to write short.

As for my professional work, I am proudest of my penultimate job as editor of Winmag.com and Byte.com. Yet it is clear from a brief conversation with one of my former supervisors that I did not impress corporate management with my work in those positions. He said he couldn't continue the conversation without permission from HR. I decided I didn't care about senior management's opinion of me. I was never even on the short list for another editor job after that. Apparently, I didn't show them anything.

Then there's the problem of my employers disappearing. I have a scrapbook full of good work I did for the late Oregon Journal, the late United Press International, the late Computer Systems News, the late Information Systems News, and the late Windows Magazine.

Information Week is still around, but no one there knows what I did at the publication. I helped found it. In August 1987, I wrote one-third of all the text that appeared in the magazine. I worked there for five years, winning two internal CMP awards. I single-handedly did the statistical work for the first five InformationWEEK 100/500 lists--both data entry and database programming. I don't expect any kudos: I collected my check and did my job. I don't even really expect to be remembered for any of the work. It would be nice, but that's not how it goes. The magazine was not a moneymaker when I was there, so my work had no value.

Virtually all the multimedia and text work I did on the Internet from 1996 to 2002 was either snuffed out gradually or suddenly and is no longer available on line. It was good work. I was proud of it. In the way of the Internet, it is as if it never happened. Again, it made no money, so there was no reason to keep it around.

I will be remembered professionally, if at all, as a mentor to Tom LaSusa, as the man who did the first Winmag CD-ROM in six weeks with zero budget, as the good boss of 14 people who kept Byte alive for two years and Winmag alive for 20 months. At a time of 50% annual turnover in the company, no one quit from either of my sites. That didn't impress upper management. It impressed me, and it impressed my people. They'll remember.

Carson, of course, knew the ephemeral nature of television accomplishment--if for no other reason than that his first 10 years were erased. Yup. NBC wanted to re-use the tape, and didn't want to pay the storage charges. I am luckier; I have on VHS tape all 100 reviews I did during my five years (19895-1990) as the weekly software reviewer on the PBS program The Computer Chronicles as well as my dozen appearances on the annual buyers' guide show, which they dropped from the schedule in 1999. Of course, with VHS dying as a format, I'd better get them dubbed off or someday they won't be viewable anymore. Is my Chronicles work a body of professional work for which I might be remembered? Doubtful.

I am proud of my work as a journalist. But basically I was just another hired gun with a typewriter--and later with a PC, and still later with a tape recorder.

If I'm remembered at all, it will be on a personal basis, as a good son, a good husband, a good father, and, if I'm really lucky, someday as a good teacher. And that is good enough for me.

By the way, I am aware of the fact that this entire item begs the question of "remembered by whom" and "in what context." The vast majority of people in the world are lucky if their relatives, not to mention total strangers, remember them. And it isn't at all clear to me what value there is to being remembered by people who know your work and not you. Still, when I was young I had hoped to create a body of memorable work. I have. It just turns out my medium was not words (spoken or written) as I had hoped and expected, but people and relationships. Talk about writing in the sand!

The Threat

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a small picture of John Ashcroft on its front page June 11, under the headline, "The Threat." There was a caption underneath, blah, blah, something about the dirty bomb suspect. But the headline and picture, I think, captured the truth.

My Brother Graduates

The column is short this week because I just flew in from Seattle, and boy are my arms tired.

Seriously, my brother Steve just received his AA degree at the age of 48, and I flew/drove to his home in Oak Harbor, Wash. to celebrate. He wore his red cap and gown, and we took many pictures. Frankly, he's an inspiration to me as I work towards my teaching certificate and eventually a masters' degree in education.

Congratulations on the flat hat Steve! You just proved we're never too old to learn.

My niece Stephanie is as beautiful as always, currently with her hair in corn rows. Her boyfriend Daniel is a delight.

Computer Industry News

Craig Reynolds' Technobriefs

Craig checks in:

Web Site of the Week

Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics

Craig Reynolds found the fascinating Stupid Movie Physics site. Here's the introduction:

Humor

The Top 15 Ways Queen Elizabeth Celebrated Her Jubilee

You know what they call the guy whose submission comes in 15th on a list of 15? Winner. I don't normally do this, but I really liked my other two submissions as well, even though they didn't make the list:

June 10, 2002

Movies

None

You want the facts? Go to the Internet Movie Database.

Letters

None

Dave Methvin's PC Pitstop